Sample Layout foran Expanded Keyboard cm | eO0+et te x sur $%° Rk C)-+ Pan 123456789 0-8 a 1234567890-— cm OUEAPT HL OSHS mur QWERTYUIOP aE Phin qwertyuiop[ ] Mote db yaidisa cm § §DAELTOUEL® wr ASDEGHJKL: * pain as d £ gh jk ls wm aBoaeroaid’ on AOG* 7 Np erg gz sur ZX CVBNMe >? e Pan zx evbnm,./ +@ a a rn © ‘Ambiguous characters are as follows, Row: Shf-2s the loatng acute Shi the fosting grave. Shf-6 isthe degree sign. Cnt the od. fal A. Cnte-B isthe ordinal 0. Shiftryphen is a subtraction sign. Al Inyphen i an en dash, and Albequal san em dash. Row 3: Ctrclon is dates . The double-quote key isa double close quote. Crirhdouble ‘quote isthe double open-quote. Alrapostophe i the single openquote (inverted comma). Row 4: Crk is the floating crcuilex, Al i the Moating caon. Ce isthe floating tide. Alb isthe floating breve ‘Alten 6 the floating macron. Shf-coname and Shif-perid are single guillemets rater than angle brackets. Altcomma isa cela, Al-priod sa midpoint, The slash key i a virgule, not fraction bar or slid. Ab- slashis an ogonek (nasal hook. The two eatea keys shown tothe rghtin the bottom row are placed in diferent positions by different keyboard manufacturers. Onan ordinary keyboard, one ofthese keys caries the backslash and pipe: the othe carries the swung dash and open quote or Aosting grave. Hee, the backslash key caries the bullet, underdot, over ot and elipss. The swung dash key s converted to cary the fur typo sraphic diphthongs o igatured vowels. “At” and “Crt are keyboard codes of the 184 persuasion, The Macintosh equivalents are “Option” and "Shift Option.” 92 CHOOSING & COMBINING TYPE 6.1 TECHNICAL CONSIDERATIONS 464.1. Consider the medium for which the typeface was originally designed. ‘Typographic puristslike to see every typeface used with the tech- nology for which it was designed, Taken literally, this means that virtually all faces designed before 1950 must be set in metal and printed letterpress, and the majority must be set by hand. Mast ‘ypographers apply this principle in a more relaxed and complex ‘way, and settle for preserving something rather than everything ofa type’ original character On the technical sie, several things can be done to increase the chance that a letterpress typeface will survive translation to digital composition and offset printing 6.1.2 When using digital adaptations of letterpress faces, choose {fonts that are faithful 10 the spirit as well asthe letter ofthe old designs. Letterpress printing places the letterform into the paper, while offet printing lays it on the surface, Many subtle differences re- sult ftom these two approaches to printing, The letterpress adds a lite bulk and definition to the letter, especially in the thin strokes, and increases the prominence of the ends of thin seri Metal typefaces are designed to take advantage of these features of letterpress printing. ‘On the offset press ~ and in the photographic procedures by which camera-ready art and offset printing plates are pre~ pared ~ thin strokes tend to get thinner and the ends of delicate serfs are eaten away. In 2 face like Bembo, for instance, offset printing tends to make features like the fet of i and l, and the heads and feet of H and I, slightly convex, while letterpress Printing tends to make them slightly concave. Faces designed for photographic manipulation and offset printing are therefore weighted and finished differently from leterpress designs. And adapting a letterpress face for digital «composition isa far from simple task, 93Technical Considera Digital fonts poorly translated from metal originals are sometimes too dark or light or blunt throughout, or uneven in stroke weight, or faithless in their proportions. They sometimes lack text figures or other essential components of the original design, But digital translations can also be too faithful to the ‘original. They sometimes neglect the subtle adjustments that the shift from three-dimensional letterpress to two-dimen- sional offset printing requires. 6.4.3. Choose faces that will survive, and if possible prosper, under the final printing conditions. ‘Bembo and Centaur, Spectrum and Palatino, are subtle and ‘beautiful alphabets, but if you are setting 8 pt text with a laser printer on plain paper at 300 dpi, the refined forms of these faces will he rubbed into the coarse digital mud of the imaging process. If the final output will be 14 pt text set directly to film ‘at 3000 dpi, then printed by good offset lithography on the best coated paper, every nuance may be crystal clear, but the result will still lack the character and texture of the letterpress me- dium for which these faces were designed. Some of the most innocent looking faces are actually the ‘most difficult to render by digital means. Optima, for example = an unserifed and apparently uncomplicated face ~ is con- structed entirely of subtle tapers and curves that can be ade- quately rendered only atthe highest resolutions. Faces with blunt and substantial serifs, open counters, gentle ‘modelling and minimal pretensions to aristocratic grace stand the best chance of surviving the indignities of low resolution, ‘Amasis, Caecilia, Lucida, Stone and Utopia, for example, while they prosper at high resolutions, are faces that will also survive under cruder conditions lethal to Centaur, Spectrum, Linotype idotor almost any version of Bodoni 6.4. Choose faces that suit he paper you intend to print on, or paper that suit the faces you wish to use ‘Most Renaissance and Baroque types were made to be pressed into robust, livly papers by fairly robust means. They wilt ‘hen placed on the glossy, hard-surfaced sheets that came into ‘vogue toward the end of the eighteenth century. Most Neoclas 94 sical and Romantic types, on the other hand, were designed to require smooth papers. Rough, three-dimensional papers break their fragile lines. Geometric Modernist types such as Futura, and overhauled Realist types such as Helvetia, can be printed ‘on rough and smooth papers alike, because they are fundamen- tally monochrome. (That isto say, the stroke is nearly uniform in width.) But the aura of machine precision that emanates from a type like Futura is reinforced by a smooth paper and contra- dicted (or counterbalanced) by a paper that feels homespun, 6.2 PRACTICAL TYPOGRAPHY 6.2.1 Choose faces that suit the task as well asthe subject. You are designing, let us say, a book about bicycle racing. You have found in the specimen books a typeface called Bicycle, ‘which has spokes inthe O, an A in the shape ofa racing seat, a that resembles a set of racing handlebars, and tiny cleated shoes, perched on the long, one-sided serifs of ascenders and descen- ders ike pumping feet on the pedals. Surely this is the perfect face for your book? Actually, typefaces and racing bikes are very much alike. Both are ideas as well as machines, and neither should be bur- dened with excess drag or baggage. Pictures of pumping feet will not make the type go faster, any more than smoke trails, pictures of rocket ships or imitation lightning bolts tied to the fame will improve the speed of the bike. ‘The best type fora book about bicycle racing willbe, fist of allan inherently good type. Second, it will be a good type for books, which means a good type for comfortable long-distance reading. Third, it wll be a type sympathetic to the theme. Itwill probably be lean, strong and swift; pechaps it will also be Ital- ‘an, But it is unlikely to be carrying excess ornament or freight, and unlikely to be indulging in a masquerade. 6.2.2 Choose faces that can furnish whatever special effects you require. your text includes an abundance of numerals, you may want a face whose numeral are especially wll designed. Palatino, Pon- ‘ifex, Trump Mediaval and Zapf International, for example, all 95 ‘Thee iso tego te ‘simmaraed on Ppisisand pralis ayer dain aptPractical Typography recommend themselves. But ifyou prefer three-quarter-height Tining numerals your options include Bel, Trajanus and Weiss. If you need small caps, faces that lack them (such as Fru- tiger, Méridien and Syntax) are out of the running. But if you need a range of weights, faces such as Centaur and Spectrum are disqualified instead. Ifyou need a matching phonetic face, your choices include Lucida Sans, Stone and Times Roman. If you need a matching Cyeilic, you might choose Minion, Lazurski, Lucida, Officina or Futura, And for the sake of a matching sanserif, you might choose Charlotte, Legacy, Lucida, Officin, Scala or Stone, These matters are explored in more detail in chapter 10, which discusses individual typefaces. ‘Special effects can also be obtained through more unortho- dox combinations, which are the subject of $6.5. 6.2.3 Use what there iso the best advantage. If there is nothing for dinner but beans, one may hunt for an ‘onion, some pepper salt, cilantro and sour cream to enliven the dish, but itis generally no help to pretend that the beans are re- ally prawns or chanterlles. ‘When the only font available is Cheltenham or Times Ro- ‘man, the typographer must make the most ofits virtues, limited though they may be. An italic, small caps and text figures will help immensely i they can be added, but there is nothing to be gained by pretending that Times Roman is Bembo or Chel tenham is Aldus in disguise. ‘As a rule, a face of modest merits should be handled with great discretion, formality and care. It should be set in modest ‘sizes (better yet, in one size only) withthe caps well spaced, the lines well leaded, and the lower case well fitted and modesty kerned. The line length should be optimal and the page impec cably proportioned. In short, the typography should be richly and superbly ordinary, so that attention is drawn to the quality ‘of the composition, not to the individual letterforms. Only 2 face that warrants close scrutiny should be set in a form that in vites it Using what there is to best advantage almost always means using les than what is available. Baskerville, Helvetica, Palatino and Times Roman, for example ~ which are four of the most Widely available typefaces are four faces with nothing to offer 96 Baskerville roman and its italic Helvetica roman and its oblique Palatino roman and its italic Times New Roman and its italic Siskel ie an English Neoclassical face designed in Birmingham in the 17505 by John Baskerville, It has a rationalist axis, thoroughgoing symmetry and delicate finish. Helvetia isa twentith-centuy Swiss revision ofa ate nineteenth century German Reali fae. The fist weights were drawn in 1956 by Max Misdinge, based on the Berthold Foundry’s old Oddjob Sansedlf, ‘aidenz Grotes, as itis called in German, The heavy unmodulated line and tiny aperture evoke an image of uncultivated strength, force and per. sisence. The ver light weights isued in recent ears have done much to reduce Helvetica's coarseness butte to increase its readability, Palatino lyrical moderris face with a neohumanist architecture, ich isto say that iis written, not drawn and that itis based on Ren- sissance forms. It as created in 1948 by Hermann Zapf Times Roman ~ propery Times New Roman ~ isan historical pas- tiche drawn by Victor Lardent for Staley Morzon in London in 193%. I has a humanist xis but Mannerst proportions, Baroque welght, and a sharp, Neoclassical fish. 97 Choosing and Combining Dpe ‘Thetraonl secon ofthe crap ot Tens Roman's ges rentysaubjecot toto ke Prrterbae ped fetal hatte signed he en by Sing Borges ary Parking Burgess Type Designs! Pine ing istry 338 WenrsirotHistorical Considera tions cone another except public disagreement. None makes a good companion face for any of the others, because each of them is, rooted ina different concept of what constitutes a letterform. IF the available palette is limited to these faces, the first thing to do is choose one for the task at hand and ignore the other three. 6.3 HISTORICAL CONSIDERATIONS ‘Typography, lke other arts, preys on its own past It can do so with the callousness of a grave robber, or with the piety of un- questioning ancestor worship. It can also do so in thoughtful, enlightened and deeply creative ways. ‘Roman type has been with us for more than five centuries. Its root components ~ the roman upper and lower case, basic analphabetic symbols, and the arabic numerals — have been with us for much longer yet. There are typographers who res- olutely avoid using any typeface designed in an earlier era, but even they must learn something of how the older letterforms functioned, because the ancient forms are living in the neve. Ty pographers who willingly use the old faces, and who wish to use them intelligently, need to know all they can learn about the heritage they enjoy. 6.3.1. Choose a face whose historical echoes and associations are in harmony with the text. Any contemporary North American library will furnish exam- ples of typographic anachronism. There are books on contem porary Italy and on seventeenth-century France set in typefaces such as Baskerville and Caslon, cut in eighteenth-century Eng- land. There are books about the Renaissance set in faces that be- Jong to the Baroque, and books about the Baroque set in faces from the Renaissance. To a good typographer itis not enough merely to avoid these kinds of laughable contradictions. The typographer seeks to shed light on the text, to generate insight and energy, by setting every text in a face and form in which it actually belongs. It is not that good typographers object to mixing centuries and cultures. Many take delight in doing so ~ especially when they have no other choice. A text from ancient Athens, for ex ample, cannot be set in an ancient Athenian version of roman type. A face designed in North America in the 19908 may wel 98 be used instead. ‘Texts from seventeenth-century France or cighteenth-century England also might be set perfectly well in faces of recent design. But a face that truly suits an historical text is likely to have some fairly clear historical content of its ‘own, There is no typeface equally suited to texts from Greek an- tiquity the French Baroque and the English Neoclassical period = though faces equally unsuited to each of them abound. ‘The historical affliations of individual typefaces are dis- cussed in chapters 7 and 10. 163.2. Allow the face to speak in its natural idiom. Books that leap historical boundaries and mix historical subjects «an pose complex and exciting typographic problems. Butoften, if text calls for a Renaissance type, it calls for Renaissance ty- ‘ography as well. This usually means Renaissance page propor- tions and margins, and an absence ofbold face. It may also mean large Renaissance versals, Renaissance style in the handling of ‘quotations, and the segregation of roman and italic. I the text «alls fora Neoclassical type, itlikewise often calls for Neodlassial ‘page design. When you undertake to use an historical typeface, take the trouble to learn the typographic idiom for which it was intended. (Works of reference that may be useful in solving par- ticular problems are listed in appendix, page 327.) 6.4 CULTURAL & PERSONAL CONSIDERATIONS 6.4.1 Choose faces whose individual spirit and character isin eeping with the text. Accidental associations are rarely a good basis for choosing a lypeface. Books of poems by the twentieth-century Jewish ‘American poet Marvin Bell, for example, have sometimes been set in Bell type — which is eighteenth-century, English and Pres- byterian ~ solely because of the name. Puns of this kind are a private amusement for typographers. But a typographic page so ‘well designed that it attains a life of its own must be based on something more than an inside joke. Leterforms have character, spirit and personality. Typog- raphers learn to discern these features through years of working first-hand with the forms, and through studying and compar- ing the work of other designers, present and past. On close in- 99 Choosing and Combining TypeCultural and Personal Considera- spection, typefaces reveal many hints of their designers’ times and temperaments, and even their nationalities and religious faiths. Faces chosen on these grounds ae likely to give more in- teresting results than faces chosen through mere convenience of availability or coincidence of name. If, for example, you are setting a text by a woman, you might prefer a face designed by a woman. Such faces were rare or non existent in earlier centuries, but there are now many to choose from. They include Gudrun Zapf-von Hesse's Alcuin, Carmina, Diotima and Noftet; Elizabeth Friedlander’s Elizabeth Holmes’ Sierra, Lucida and Kolibris Kris Holmes’ and Janice Prescott Fishman’s Shannon; Carol Twombly’s Charlemagne, Lithos, Nueva and Trajan; Zuzana Ligko’s Journal; Cynthia Hollandsworth’s Hiroshige and Tiepolo, and Ise Schile’s Rhap- sodie. For some purposes, one might also go back to the work of Elizabeth Colwell, whose Colwell Handlette, issued by arr in 1916, was the frst American typeface designed by a woman. But pethaps a text bya French author, ora text dealing with France, might best be set in a French typeface, without regard to the gender of author or designer. The choices include Gara- ‘mond, Jannon, Mendoza, Méridien, Vendome and many oth: crs, but even this abbreviated list covers considerable range. Garamond ~ of which there are many recent revivals ~ was de- signed in sixteenth-century Paris. It owes much to Italian forms and belongs to the world of Renaissance Catholicism. Jannon is, ‘equally elegant but nonconformist. It belongs to the Reforma- tion rather than the Renaissance, and its designer, Jean Jannon, ‘was a French Protestant who suffered all hs life from religious persecution. Vendéme, designed by Francois Ganeau, isa witty twentieth-century face much indebted to Jannon. Mendoza, designed in Paris in 1990, goes back to the tough humanist roots from which Garamond sprang. Méridien, from the 1950s, is more in touch with the secular spirit of twentieth-century Swiss industrial design, yeti includes a regal, even imperious, upper case and a very crisp and graceful italic. These five difer ent faces invite additional differences in page design, paper, and binding as well as different texts, just as different musical in struments invite diferent phrasings, different tempi, different musical modes or keys. Even nations such as Greece and Thailand, which have al- phabets of their own, share in a multinational tradition of type Garamond roman and its italic Jannon roman and its italic Mendoza roman and its italic Méridien roman and its italic Vendome roman and its oblique Stempel Garamond the Stempel Foundey's replica of text roman and {alc designed by Claude Garamond (1490-1561) (Compare the re productions of some of Garamand's actual type on page 74) Monotype ‘Garamond! 156 is a revival of type designed by Jean Jannon (1580-1658), the greatest typecutter of the French Baroque, Jannons type was once misidentified as Garamond's and is stl often sold under his name, Mendo2s isa recent design by José Mendoza y Almeida. Mésiden, by Adian Frutiger, and Vendéme, by Francois Ganeau, afe both peod- vets ofthe 19505, Ganeau ~ who worked as a painter, sculptor and set designer more than as a typographer — based Vendée on jannon's et "ers, but moved them playful inthe direction of French Neocassiciem, Choosing and Combining TipeCultural ‘and Personal Considera- design. Nevertheless, some typefaces seem more redolent of na- tional character than others. Frederic Goudy, for example, is widely regarded asthe most ebullienty American of ll Ameri- can type designers. Te sensitive typographer would not choose ‘one of Goudy’ faces ost, let us say, the text ofthe Canadian or Mexican constitution. ‘This subject isaifelong study, and fr serious typographers itisalifelong source of discovery and delight. Her iti pursued at greater length in chapter 10. Appendix c (page 299) isa cross-indexed list of type designers. 6.5 THE MULTICULTURAL PAGE Consistency is one of the forms of beauty. Contrast is another ‘A fine page, even a fine book, can be set from beginning to end in one type in one size, It can also teem with variety, like an ‘equatorial forest ora modern city. 6.5. Stare witha singe typographic family. Most pages, and most entire documents, can beset perfectly well, with only one family of type. But perhaps the page confronting you requites a chapter ttl, two or three levels of subheads, an epigraph, a text in two languages, block quotations within the text, couple of mathematical equations, a bar graph, several ex: planatory sidenotes, and captions for photographs and a map. ‘An extended type family, such as Legacy, Lucida or Stone, may provide sufficient resources even for ths task. Another possibil ity is Geratd Unger’s comprehensive series known as Demos, Praxis and Flora which isa family with no surname to unite it Each of these series includes both roman and italic in a range of weights, matching serifed and unserifed forms, and other varie tions. Ifyou restrict yourself to faces within the family, you can hhave variety and homogeneity at the same time: many shapes and sizes but a single typographic culture. Such an approach is el sited to some texts, poorly suited to others. ‘You can also, of course, mix faces at random, by drawing them out ofa hat. Between these two extremes isthe wide arena of thoughtful ‘mixing and matching, in which the typographic intelligence of ten does its most creative work and play. 6.5. Respect the integrity of roman, italic & small caps. Ichas been the normal practice of type designers since the mid- dle ofthe sisteenth century to offer text faces in the form of a snatched triad, consisting of roman, italic and small caps. Be- cause some ofthese marriages ae more sucessful than others, it is wis to examine the roman and the italic both separately and together when choosing a text face. There ae several celebrated instances in which an italic de- signed by one artist has been happily and permanently married to another designer's roman. These matches always involve some edrawing (andthe face that is most heavily redrawn isl ‘most always the italic, which is the subsidiary and ‘feminine? font in post-Renaissance typography). There ae also instances in which a roman and its italic have been designed by the same rtst many years apart. But casual liaisons, in which the roman of one family is paired momentarily with the italic of another, have litle hope of success. Mixing small caps from one face ‘with fll caps from another is even less likely to succeed. Ifyou use type strictly in the Renaissance manner, treating the roman and italic as separate but equal, not mixing them on the line, you may find tht greater latitude is possible. Jan van Krimpen's Luteta italic mixes wel with his later Romanée ro- nan for example, if the two are not too intimately combined, Ones visibly more mature than the other, but they are lose in color and structure, and they are patently the work ofthe same designer 165.3. Consider bold faces on their own merits. The original boldface printing types are the blackletters used by Gutenberg in the 14405. For the next two centuries, blacketter fonts were widely used not only in Germany but in France, Spain, the Netherlands and England. (That is why blacdetter fonts are occasionally sold in the usa as Olde English’) Boldface romans, however, are a nineteenth-century inven- tion, Bold italic is even more recent, and it is hard to find a sue- version designed before 1950, Bold romans and italics have ben added retroactively to many earlier faces, but they are ‘often simply parodies ofthe original designs. Before using a bold weight, especially a bold italic ask your 103 Choosing and Combining BpeThe Multicultural Page self whether you really need it at all. Ifthe answer is yes, you ‘may want to avoid type families such as Bembo, Garamond or Baskerville, to which bold weights have been retroactively added but do not in fact belong. You might, instead, choose a ‘wentieth-century family such as Méridien, Nofret or Utopia, in Which a range of weights is part of the original design. If your text face lacks a bold weight, you may also find an appropriate bold close by. Hermann Zapf's Aldus, for example, isa twentieth-century family on the Renaissance model, limited to roman, italic and small caps. But Aldus isa close cousin of the same designer’ Palatino family, which does include a bold, and Palatino bold sits reasonably wel with Aldus txt. aaardvark; b balloon; 3 thruppence ‘Aldus roman wih alain bold Equally interesting results can often be obtained by reach- ing much farther afield. The normal function of boldface type is, afterall, to contrast with the roman text. Ifthe bold is used in small amounts, and bold and roman are not too intimately combined, a difference in structure as well as weight may be an asset. Under these conditions, a typographer is free to choose both roman and bold on their own merits, seeking basic com patibility rather than close genetic connection. ccoelacanth; d daffodil; 4 Franciscan ‘Sabon roman with Zapf International bold A text might be set in Sabon, for example, with Zapf Inter- national as a titling face and Zapf International bold for sub- hheads and flags. Structurally, these ae very different faces, with very different pedigrees. But Sabon has the calm and steady flow required for setting text, while Zapf Internationals vitality ‘makes it a good face for titling ~ and this vitality persists even in the boldest weights, Most of the bold fonts structurally closer to Sabon, on the other hand, look splayed and deformed. Fifeenth-century typographers ~ Nicolas Jenson for exam. ple ~ rarely mixed fonts except when mixing languages. They loved an even page. Bold roman is therefore an appendage they ddid happily without. If, nevertheless, you were using one of the 104 fine text faces based on Jenson’s single roman font and wanted to ‘embellish it with bold, you might consider using Jenson’s kind of bold. The only dark faceshe cut were blackleters. €léve elephant; foot filibuster; twi phytogenic Bruce Rogers's Centaur (here 6 pt) with Kalgeorg Hoefer's San Marco (sap). Centaur is based on the oman that Nicolas Jenson cut at Venice in 1469, San Marco is based onthe rotundas he cut there inthe 14708, 65.4 Choose titling and display faces that reinforce the structure of the text face. Tiling faces, display faces and scripts can be chosen on much the same principlesas bold faces. Incestuous similarity israrely a e- casity but empathy and compatiblity usually are. A geomet- tically constructed, high-contrast face such as Bauer Bodoni, beautiful though it may be, has marginal promise asa titling face fora text set in Garamond or Bembo, whose contrast islow and ‘whose structure is fundamentally calligraphic. (Bodoni mixes far more happily with Baskerville of which itis nota contradic- tion but rather an exaggeration.) 6.55 Pair serifed and unserifed faces on the basis oftheir inner structure, ‘When the basic text is set in a serifed fac, a related sanserifis frequently useful for other elements, such as tables, captions or notes. In complicated texts, such as dictionary entries, it may also be necessary to mix unserifed and serifed fonts on the same line. IFyou've chosen a family that includes a matched sanserif, your problems may be solved. But many successful marriages between serifed and unserifed faces from different families are ating to be made, Frutiger Méridien Univers Suppose your main text i set in Méridien — a serfed roman and italic designed by Adrian Frutiger. It would be reasonable to look first of all among Frutiger’s other creations for a related sanseif.Frutige i a prolific designer of types, both serifed and ‘unsrifed, so there ae several from which to choose. Univers is 105 Choosing and Combining TypeThe ‘Multiculrural Page his most widely used sanserif. But another of his unserifed faces = the one to which he gave his own name is structurally much closer to Méridien and works handsomely as a companion. Hans Eduard Meier's Syntax is a sanserif much different in structure from either Erutiger or Univers. Iti based on serifed Renaissance forms like those of Garamond. It works well with such faces as Stempel ar Adobe Garamond, or with Sabon, an- other descendant of Garamond, designed by Meier's contem- porary and countryman, Jan Tschichold. If your choice falls on a more geometric sanserif, such as Futura, a Renaissance roman will hardly suffice as a serifed companion, Many romans based on the work of Bodoni, how- ever, breathe much the same sprit as Futura. They aspire not to calligraphic motion but to geometric purity. Gabocse escobaG Gabocse escobaG. Gabocse escobaG Syntax and Minion, above; Futura and Berthold Bodoni, center; He veica and Haas Clarendon, below, 6.6 MIXING ALPHABETS 6.6.1 Choose non-Latin faces as carefully as Latin ones. Mixing Latin leters with Hebrew or Arabic is, in principle, scarcely diferent from mixing roman with blackleter or serif with sans, Different though they look, and even though they read in different directions, all these alphabets spring from the same source, and all are written with similar tools. Many struc tural similarities underlie the obvious differences. A book in volving more than one alphabet therefore poses some of the same questions posed by a bilingual or polylingual book set en- tirely in Latin leters. The typographer must decide in each case ~ after studying the text ~ whether to emphasize or minimize the differences, In general, the more closely different alphabets are mixed, the more important it becomes that they should be 106 close in color and in size, no matter how superficially diferent in form, ‘The Latin, Greek and Cyrillic alphabets are as closely re- lated in structure as roman, italic and small caps. (And in most Cyrillic faces, the lower case is close in color and shape to Latin small caps.) Random marriages of Latin and Greek, or Latin and Cyrili, look just as ungainly and haphazard as random ‘combinations of roman, italic and smal caps ~ but excellent sets of related faces have developed, and a few homogeneous polyglot families have been designed. Plato and Aristotle both quote the line of Parmenides that says mpdtiotov pev Ewra Oedv pyticato névtov: “The first of all the gods to arise in the mind of their mother was PHYSICAL LOVE.” Tpexn 60rorsopuH Mpuposy H aBellamM MUpy CBOIO pemHrH0, TO ect unocogiuto u uckyccmeo, says a character named Shatov in Dostoevsky’s novel Demons: “The Greeks deified nature and bequeathed to the world their religion, which is philosophy and art.” Robert Siembach’s Minion roman, italic and small caps, with upright and ‘use Minion Clic anda prototype version of Minion Greek. 107 Choosing ‘and Combining ‘ype‘Te text on he Medora os wih sa pars eo ani ewer ied spk Heteniape On ‘he Bcing a. the oman ed faeate gar tony the Grek Isto peors onion The vigil eos ‘coat bo, printed in ‘ou wast ‘hecarious combination ‘pune ad oson Grek) The second proposition of Thales declares that the Allis alive, or has Soul in it (1 srav Euyuxov). This statement accounts for the mobility of pots. Its motion, and its power of generating things other than itself, are due to its life (yuxi), an inward, spontaneous principle of activity. (CF. Plato, Laws 892c: gow BotAovrat Aé- yew yéveow Thy Tepi T& Tpéra: et BE gavfioetan YuXA MpérTov, ov THUp OvBE étip, wuxh 2 Ev mparors yeyermpérn, oxe6dv dpB6tara Aéyorr dy elvan Biage- pévraas gael). Itisa general rule that the Greek philosophers describe .qvors as standing in the same relation to the universe as soul does to body. Anaximenes, the third Milesian, says: olov f yuxh f huetépa dip ofa avy kpartl AHS, Kal Bhov Tov KdopoV nved je Kal dip TepIéyet. "As our soul is air and holds us together, so a breath or air embraces the whole cosmos.":.. ‘The second function of Soul ~ knowing ~ was not at first distinguished from motion. Aristotle says, gait yap Thy yuxiy AuTioBat xaipety, Bappeiv poBeio8an, En BE épyileatal re Kal aiodveota1 Kall BiavorioBar ‘ratira 8 wévra xwiioess elven Boxotiow. 88ev oinBein “ns iv ariy xeia®on.“The soul is said to feel pain and joy, confidence and fear, and again to be angry, to per- ceive, and to think; and all these states are held to be ‘movements, which might lead one to suppose that soul itself is moved”? Sense-perception (aio#nois), not di tinguished from thought, was taken as the type ofall cog~ nition, and this isa form of action ata distance.> QO. AS THE SOUL /THE SOUL AS FNQZI5. ‘rag, 2 ComparePythagera'“boundles breath” cud the heavens, whlch in. led by the wold (As, hy 213822), and Heracli’ “avine reason’ which sxrvounds (wep) us aed wich we de iby means of epction (Se Emp. de Math 27). $ Deanim 410425: Those who make soul consis ofl th ements and who held that ile peciver and know ke, “asm tat perce ia ort Fein acted ‘pon or moved and that the ame itr of thinking and knowing” (70° alo rota mayen wal wieder kasi Sus BE xoh nb voy Te xl rsa) All such action, moreover, was held to require a con- tinuous vehiele or medium, uniting the soul which knows to the object which is known. Further, the soul and its ob- ject must not only be thus linked in physical contact, but they must be alike or akin. 1t follows from this principle that, if the Soul is to know the world, the world must ultimately consist of the same substance as Soul. dois and Soul must be homoge- neous. Aristotle formulates the doctrine with great preci- 004 8'éni 7d yuronew nod 7b aiaBéveaa rav Bvran, bro. 88 Aéyovor ry uxiy ras dpxds, of piv mretovs rnowotivres, rairas, of 88 pay, rairyy, chomep "Byumeonhis piv é rébv ororyeiaw névren, elvat 82 nat éxaorov duxiy robrw, Mywn obras ain ndv yap yatan éndsnapen, Sar 8 Twp, ailkp. 8’ aiBépa Biav, érdp mpi nip anor, oropyi Be oropyhv, veixos Bé re vetxe’ Nvypg. ev adrov B& rpdnov Kai UAdraw &v 7 Tysaio Thy oxi de raw oroeyeiiny noxe? yeyvdroncoBax yap 76 Soi ro Guowy, 78 88 mpdypara ex ra épxsu divas, “Those who laid stress on its knowledge and percep- tion of all that exists, identified the soul with the ultimate principles, whether they recognized a plurality ofthese or ‘only one. Thus, Empedocles compounded soul out of all the elements, while at the same time regarding each one of them asa soul. His words are, With earth we se earth, with water water, with air bright air, ravaging fire by fre, love by love, ana strife by gruesome strife “In the same manner, Plato in the Timacus constructs the soul out of the elements, Like, he there maintains, is known by like, and the things we know are composed of the ultimate principles...."* 4 Deanna 40488-a8. 109 “Teter oo theaod the facing yage ae spec fom From Ragone Phiopy: 4 Sui nthe Or gosef Weer Speaton (london 33) Some atthe Grek queens hve bene hve been moved ‘nex Thie takes Corton pedantic andes Tashan realy batit per ahardet fete pe iedacthe oan time peri fp Semeasion‘Tes ins stomts fant Athnatos Beoporon ‘Hy Ho a mpeaympexxaato Bac, But I’m warning you, Yro 9 okuBy B MOCAeAHMM pas. this is my last existence. Hn aacrouxoii, HM KAeHOM, Not as a swallow, not as a maple, Hu rpocramxom 1 HM sBegaoti not as a cat-tail and not asa star ... ‘The words of Anna Akhmatova inthe letters of Vain Lazutsk. The type is Lazucst Cyeilie wth ts companion roman. Greek leters, like Greek words, are used for many purposes innon-Greek-speaking countries. Physcistsand fraternity mem- bers, astronomers and novelists have raided the ld alphabet for symbols. Because of their frequent use in mathematics and tech- nical writing, a grab-bag of Greck letters lurks somewhere in nearly every digital typesetting system. a, By, 0, m, © (alpha, beta, gamma, theta, pi, cap omega) and their brethren are usually housed, with other mathematical symbols, ina ghetto called the pifont, But setting Greek text with such a font is nota thankful task. Pi fonts lack the breathing marks and accents used in the classical language, and even the two simple diacritics (acute and diaeresis) that survive in modern Greek; and some pi fonts in clude only ten Greek caps—T A @ AZ ITE ¥ 2— because the others ABEH ZIKMNOPTY X - have familiar roman forms, though notin every case the same phonetic value ‘A text that includes even a single Greek quotation calls for Greek text font rather than api font. text font will include not only the full alphabet but matching punctuation and all the ‘monotonic (modern) or polytonic (classical) diacritics. It wil include two forms of lowercase sigma (¢, used at the ends of words, and o, used everywhere else), and three iota subscripts, positioned to fit beneath the three long vowels with which they are used (for example), With uck, the font may also in- clude a sensible kerning table anda rational Keyboard layout. ‘Thisisa lotto ask from an industry in which there is, officially, no culture other than commerce and no purpose except mone- tary gun, Iisa Jor to ask, but not by itself enough. In Greek as inany other alphabet, the face must suit he text. It must also suit the context, which is likely to be roman and italic. ‘There may be 50,000 fonts of type for the Latin alphabet now on the marke in digital form, These comprise some 6000 faniles. Perhaps two percent of them are truly useful for text work ~ but a hundeed families of type is stil a very generous number, and the available text faces cover a wide stylistic range. With a litle scrounging, one can turn up several dozen digital fonts of Greek but again only a smal perentageof these have any real potential for text work. Its therefore often best to choose a Greek font first, and then a roman and talc to go with it, even when only a few Greek words ora single Greek quota- tion i present in the text you are going to st. ‘Two Greek text fonts with eminent credentials ~ Victor Scholderer's New Hellenic, designed in 1927, and Richard Por- son's Porson, designed in 1806 ~ are shovn, in thei digital in- camations, on pages 108 & 109. Porson’s Greek was frst com- nissioned by Cambridge University Press, but it became in the twentcth century the favorite Greek at Oxford, while Schol- derer’s New Hellenic became the favorite Cambridge Greek. New Hellenic in particular has an eminent Renaissance pedi- sree further discussed in chapter 10. 6.6.2. Match the continuity ofthe typography tothe continuity of thought. ‘A text composed in a single dialect may be full of leaps and holes, while a text that hops and skips through several lan- [guages and alphabets may in fact be tracing a path that is per- feclly smooth. The continuity, or lack of continuity, that under- lies the text should as a rule be revealed, not concealed, in the cloth the typographer weaves. ‘An author who quotes Greek or Hebrew or Russian or Ara- bic fluently and gracefully in speech should be permitted to do likewise on the page. Practically speaking, this means that when, the alphabets are mixed, they should be very closely balanced both in color and in contrast. Choosing and Combining TipeMixing Alphabets abyohi &Byo61 abyohi abyohi &Byo81 abyohi abyohi &Byoti abyohi ‘Victor Scholderers New Hellenic pated with José Mendoza's Mendoza (above), with Peter Matthias Noordi’s Caeciia (center) and vith Adobe Jenson (below). Mendoza is a face with very low contrat (he thicks and thin are nearly the same). New Hellenic and Caecia have an Uunmedulated stoke —in other words, no contrast at ll. New Hellenic and Adobe Jenson have stylistic compatibility ofa diferent kind. Both stem from the work of Nicolas Jenson, who in 1469 cut the father ofthis ‘oman snd in 1471 the grandfather of his Greek low and slope are other factors to consider, especially when balancing Latin and Greek. Many Greek text faces (the Porson ‘and Didot Greeks for example) are structurally comparable to italics. That is, they are cursive. Some of them are upright nonetheless (like the Didot), and some (like the Porson) slope. When roman, italic and Greek are combined on the page, the Greek may be upright like the roman, or it may harmonize with the italic in flow and slope. It may also stand aloof, with a gait and inclination of its own, 6.6.3 Balance the type optically more than mathematically Two other factors of importance when types sit side by side are their torso(x-height) and extension. Whenalong-limbed Greekis paired with a short-limbed Latin, the difference will stand out Large disparities in x-height are far more obvious still. In metal, thisisa harsh typographic constraint. In the digital medium, itis, ‘easy to match the torso of any Greek face to that of any Latin face ‘exactly, through microscopic adjustments in size. But an optical, ‘not mathematical, match isthe goal. Classical Greek, beneath its loud of diacritics, needs more room to breathe than roman type. And when setting Greek in footnotes, the minimum practical sie isthe size at which the accents are still egible. abyohi &Byo8 abyohi abyohi &Byo6. abyohi abyohi &6y08. abyohi ‘Above: The Greek of Richard Porson paired with W.A. Dwiggins's Electra. emer: Didot Greek paired with Adobe Caslon. Below: The Bodoni Greek of Takis Katsouides paired with the Esprit roman and italic of Jovica \Vehové. Electra italic and Porson Greek both have a slope of 10", while the Caslonitalicslopes at 20° Porson, wit is rationalist axis also has a structural kinship to Electra. The Didot Greek, though Neoclassical in form, is closer in color to Caslon. Katsoulies's more playful Bodoni Geek's closer both in structure and in spirit to Expt ‘The type on page 109 looked fine when it was first roughed ‘ut, using bald Greek letters identical in x-height to the roman. When the bald sorts were replaced with accented letters, the Greek was still mathematically correct but optically too large. Balance was restored by shrinking the Greek from 11 to 10.5 pt ‘he x-height of the type is (as usual in a Neoclassical text face) only about two fifths ofthe body size. The difference in x-height between 10.5 and 11 pt type is accordingly two fifths of half a point. That is roughly you, which is less than 0.003". Not ‘much, but enough to unbalance or balance the page. 6.7 NEW oRTHOGRAPHIES ‘No writing system is fixed. Even our ways of writing classical Latin and Greek continue to change, along with our ways of writing and spelling such rapidly mutating languages as Eng- lish. But many languages old to speech are new to writing, and ‘many have not yet decided ther iterate form, In North Ameria, for example, Navajo, Hopi, Tlingit, Cree, Ojibwa, Inuktitut and Cherokee, among others, have evolved ‘ite stable writing systems, in which a substantial printed liter- ature has accrued. But many Native American languages are still, being written indifferent ways by every scholar and student who 43, Choosing and Combining TypeNew Orthogea- hies ‘happens by. Some, ike Tsimshian and Kwakwala, already possess ‘a considerable written literature, but in cumbersome scripts that even scholars have ceased to use. Typographers must generally confront these problems piece ‘meal. Alphabets are often created by fit, but itis usually in tiny increments that real typographic style evolves 6.71 Add no unnecessary characters. Colonial expansion has carried the Arabic alphabet across the north of Africa and much of southern Asia, Cyrillic script across the north of Asia, and the Latin alphabet around the world. For better or for worse, most of those learning to read and write in newly literate languages are exposed to writing in a colonial lan ‘guage first.For readers and typographers alike, the basic Latin, (Cyrillic or Arabic alphabet is therefore often the easiest place to start, and the fewer additional symbols required the better. The ddream of a common language, imposed upon many minority cultures, has proven for most to bea nightmare. But in a world where thereare hundreds ofancestraland classical languagesand literatures instead of one or two, prayers for renewed diversifica- tion often ental the dream of a common script. ‘Wa'gién sq@"Agua la’na hin swan, “Kiwa la tala'a giaitein” \Wagyaan sqainggwa llaana hin saawan, "Kkwa lla ‘taalang bl gyadlitsin” {A sentence inthe Haida language, inthe eatiest (1901) standard or thography and a more recent, implied version. ln the ist, gltalized consonants are marked by exlamatons and long vowels by macrons. In the second, both ate notated by doubling. (Translation: Then the one in the bow said, “Let us tok it board’) 6.72 Add only characters that are visually distinct ‘The texture of the typographic page depends not only on how the type is designed, set and printed, but also on the frequency of different letters. Latin looks smoother than English (and ‘muuch smoother than German) because it uses fewer ascending and descending letters, no accented characters, and (in the ng hhands of most editors) very few caps. Polynesian languages ~ Maori and Hawaiian, for example ~ which are long on vowels and short on consonants, compose into a texture even creamier than Latin, and require an even smaller alphabet. ‘Most languages need more, not fewer, consonants than the basic Latin alphabet provides. There may be (as in Haida and ‘Tlingit) four forms of &, or (as in the Khoisan languages of southwest Aftica) 36 diferent clicks ~ and if each is lexically sig nificant, each needs a distinctive typographic form. Vowels are fairly easy to elaborate when need bes except for the y they have no extenders. Navajo, for example, involves twelve forms of a~ a, a, 9,98 & 4, da, adj 44 $9, 94 ~ all as ily distinguished. Typographicaly, it would be no problem to add another dozen forms. Consonants are not quite so easy to ramify, precisely be- ‘cause so many of them have extenders. Typographically defi- cient forms therefore often crop up. Lakota, for example ~ the language of the Teton Sioux ~ requires two forms of h. Stephen. Riggs, who published the first Lakota dictionary and grammar in 1852, chose to mark the second form with an overdot: A. This, character, which is still used by many native speakers and some scholars, is easily mistaken for li. More recent Lakota spelling replaces the dotted h with an x. This is easier to set, but more importantly, it is harder to misread, In the Tlingit language, spoken and written in southern Alaska, northern British Columbia and the Yukon, underscores are used to mark wvular consonants, which is fine for k and x, but not so fine for g.A form like gor or , though less consis- tent, is more compact and, once again, harder to misread. ‘The desire for consistency was not the only factor that led carlie linguists to write g instead of j, The Tlingit alphabet was developed, like many early twentieth-century writing systems, using only the keyboard of a North American typewriter. Re- cent Tlingit publications are typeset with computers using ‘modified fonts of Palatino or Stone, but the iron metaphor of the typewriter has not yet loosed its hold Elsewhere in the world, the mechanical typewriter and let- terpress are still economically viable and socially prestigious ‘ools~ and this need not prevent new alphabet design. The Pan [Nigerian face shown overleaf was cut and cast commercially for hand composition in 1983, Mechanical typewriters using a ‘monospaced version of the font entered production in 1985, ns Inthe Nano alphabet aad been) ong {deel vowels te ogoek High tec med vet ance Long high vowels neared vowel Long ing vowel carryanacateon {eft owe seitoarang ate on the cond vowel on Glonaled ‘lowes by postophcsNew Orthogra- hies Upper chet, yowwilemere ‘atone (terion ‘ontio) ‘stra abbcddeoéfghiifjkkl ABBCDDEAEFGHIIJJKKL MNOOPRSSTUUVWYZ mnooprsstitivwyz Pan Nigerian alphabet designed in 1983 by Hermann Zap, in collabora tion wth Victor Manfed. This normalizes the missionary orthographies that have been used for Hausa Ibo, Yoruba, Edo, Fulfulde and several other Nigerian languages 16.73 Avoid capricious redefinition of familiar characters. ‘Mayan languages have been written in roman seript since the 1550s, but more than one orthography remains in use. Perhaps ‘the oldest, based on the manuscript tradition ofthe Popol Vis ‘uses the numerals 3 and 4 and the digraphs 4h and 4, [including the comma] to write several glotalized consonants. The Quiché words for sun and moon, for example, can be written kik and ‘ic; or kkih and ie, or 3h and ig, and the word for blood can be ‘written qui’ or quitt2 or quis, Inthe final case ~ but not in any ‘of the others ~ the coma is part of the word and not a mark of punctuation. Though itis not as picturesque as Mayan hieroglyphs, this alphanumeric script appeals to some scholars and amateurs, pethaps because of its very strangeness. Typographically, it begs for clarification, either through the creation of unambiguous new symbols or through reversion to plain old roman letters (which is now a common practice). 6.7.4. Don't mix faces haphazarily when specialized sorts are required. If a text involves setting occasional words such as 2aNaqsm or ntanajon] fanertks, itis best to plan for them from the begin: ng, Two standard phonetic alphabets are in use: the interna tional 1a)and the American. But the extra characters involved have been cut for only afew faces. (Lucida Sans, Stone and Times Roman are examples. Stone phonetic ~ which is used here ~ exists in both serifed and unserifed forms.) The typographer therefore has two choices:to eet the entre text in a face for which né ‘matching phonetic characters are available, so that phonetic transcriptions can enter the text transparently and at will; ort set the main text in a suitably contrasting face, and switch to the phonetic font (slong with its matching tex font, ifrequired) each timea phonetic transcription occurs If contrasting faces are used for phonetic transcriptions and. ‘ain text, each entire phonetic word or passage, not just the in- dividual phonetic characters, should be set in the chosen pho- netic face. Patchwork typography, in which the letters ofa single word come from different faces and fonts, is a sign of typo- sraphic failure. Forms such as ‘Oraétona’ and ‘Usaban. some- ‘Avestan, are typographically problematic because they mix two alphabets within a single word. Such mixtures rarely succeed un less all the fonts involved have been designed as a single family, (Thisis the case here, wherea unified Latin and Greek are used.) 6.8 BUILDING A TYPE LinRaRy 6.8. Choose your library of faces slowly and wel Some of the best typographers who ever lived had no more than fone roman font at a time, one blackletter and one Greek. Oth~ ers had as many as five or six romans, two or thre italics, three blackletters, three or four Greeks. Today, the typographer can buy fonts by the thousand on compact discs, and use the tele- Phone to download thousands more: more fonts than any hu- ‘man could use, yt never a complete selection. With typeas with philosophy, music and food, itis better to havea lite of the best than to be swamped with the derivative, the careless, the routine, ‘The stock fonts supplied with software packages and desk- ‘op printers are sometimes generous in number, but they are the wrong fonts for many tasks and people, and most of them, are missing essential part (small caps, text figures, ligatures, di- ‘actitics and important analphabetics). Begin by buying one good face or family, or a few related ‘aces, with all the components intact. And instead of skipping from face to face, attempting to try everything, stay with your frst choices long enough to learn their virtues and limitations before you move on, ny Choosing and Combining Bpe